To treat today’s offering as a declarer play problem, cover the East and West hands.
In the open teams qualifier at the 2024 European Transnationals, you bid to the heart game after West makes a takeout double of hearts and partner shows a good two-heart bid. Plan the play on the club king lead.
West’s double forebodes bad splits in both red suits. You are therefore at risk of losing a spade, two diamonds and at least one heart. You could ruff your fourth diamond in dummy, but that may not help with East poised to overruff. Any other ideas?
It is best to try to score club ruffs in your hand together with five side-suit tricks. This will involve leading twice through West’s presumed diamond ace. If he takes his trick, your diamond queen will come through for a spade pitch. You therefore lead a diamond to the king at trick two and return to hand with a club ruff. Crossing in spades instead would leave you a tempo behind if West were to grab the second diamond and continue spades. Besides, you need to use your time in dummy to ruff clubs.
When you lead a second diamond, West faces a Hobson’s choice. His only reasonable option is to play low. You score the diamond jack and ruff another club. You then cash the heart ace before taking the spade king and ace, and then you lead a fourth club from the table. If East were to ruff in with a middling trump, you could simply discard your spade. When he follows suit, you score your heart seven for the ninth trick, with the heart king to come.